


Caged

by Cantatrice18



Category: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
Genre: Character Study, Extended Scene, Feels, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 06:56:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9645329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cantatrice18/pseuds/Cantatrice18
Summary: Miss Peregrine knows at once what Barron wants from her, the moment he arrives at the mansion's elegant front door. But calmly allowing herself to be caged and kept like a pet will take all her resolve. Only the thought of her children can keep her strong.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written on a phone at 35,000 feet during hour 21 of international travel. I swear I''ll edit soon.

The moment she saw Barron on her doorstep, his steel blade of a hand held against Jake's unprotected throat, she knew what had to happen next. Her mind moved swiftly, connecting together all the pieces that had led them to this moment and forming a picture, an end game only one set of moves could accomplish. She would have to leave her children, or risk watching them murdered in front of her. That much was bad enough. Her heart, so devoted to her young charges, ached at the thought of abandoning them in their hour of need. But they had Miss Avocet, and Jake too, if she played her cards right. And who would she have?

She detested cages. The raw scent of metal, the inability to stretch out her luxurious wings and fly as birds were meant to do. Cages made her powerless, an object to be stared at or toyed with. In her mind's eye she could already see the hungry stares of the wights as the ogled her through the bars. She struggled vainly to keep her voice calm as she explained to her frightened, bewildered children what she intended to do. The look on Claire's face and the way the twins clutched each other's hands nearly broke her. It was all she could manage not to run to them and embrace them, but doing so would put them in even more danger, and that she refused to do. Her fate, no matter how horrifying, would be bearable so long as they were safe. And so, when the time came, she shut the parlor doors with a sharp finality, placing a wooden barrier between her children and the monster who demanded to take her from them. Lifting her arms, she allowed her bones to hollow and her limbs to shrink, her skin to sprout feathers as sleek as any in the avian family. For a brief, fleeting moment she felt a touch of pride at the wonder on Jake's face. It was no small thing to watch an Ymbryne take flight. If this was to be her final transformation, if Barron and his despicable cohorts chose to keep her caged until her death, at least she had the comfort of knowing her last moments of winged freedom were witnessed by someone capable of appreciating the beauty of a woman-turned-falcon in flight.


End file.
